The doctor and the cancer kid
by Sheila Prior
Summary: JD gets a new patient, a child with cancer.


J.D's P.O.V

I walked into my latest patients room. Liz Katara. 14 years old. Lung cancer, stage 3. Her situation was a little depressing to say the least. Anyway, I opened the door to Cox, who was fixing her IV, and looking very grumpy about being there. Mainly because she was glaring at him the whole time. I stifled a chuckle as he finally left with Elliot. Liz's gaze turned to me. I smiled at her."Morning Liz, I'm , I'm gonna be you're doctor while you're here." I sat down beside her."So, how are you feeling?" IT was a stupid question, anyone laying in a hospital bed would be feeling suckish.

"Other than the terminal cancer slowly beating at my lungs, okay." She shrugged. Not the answer I was expecting. I already liked her.

"No pain anywhere?" She thought for a moment and shook her head.

"Nope." I smiled at that. Easier to deal with with no pain.

"Alright. So, Liz Katara, 14, lung cancer stage three." I saw her face twist in confusion."Those are the only things I know about you, so, I want to know more." I always made it a point of mine to get to know child patients. So we talked, and talked, and talked. Turned out we shared a lot of stuff. Favourite colour(blue), favourite animal(horse), favourite date(April 25th), and a whole bunch of other things. I looked at her oxygen levels and frowned. they were already low. "Okay Liz, you gotta hold your breath for a second while I change your tank." I nodded to the green oxygen tank by the side of her bed, the one that wasn't hooked up to the machine. She nodded and complied as I changed it."Okay, you're good." She let out a giant blow of air. I chuckled and sat back down. We talked a little more after that until it was time for me to go."Well, I gotta go. But I'll see you later okay?"

"Okay." She waved as I left. Later I sat down in the lunch room with Turk and Carla, Elliot had yet to arrive.

"Hey guys, I met this really nice patient today, she's so..lively." I chuckled at the sad, sad irony. I saw Turk and Carla smirk.

Ohh, Bambi met a cute girl, come on, you know you can't ask her out." What?!

"What?! No, she's fourteen, god." I took a bite of my sandwich and swallowed as they understood.

"What's so cool about her?" Turk asked. I told them what we had talked about and her views on stuff. Elliot had sat down by now. Turk smiled."That is one cool kid." I nodded.

"Yeah."

* * *

The next day I walked into Liz's room, where she was reading a book. The title of it caught my eye."The fault in our stars huh?" She jumped and I chuckled. I watched Liz roll her green eyes. "Hey, I'm not judging, it's really good isn't it?" She nodded.

"I know it's kind of a given, but I couldn't help myself." She shrugged at me."Hey Dorian?"

"You can call me JD" I said as I looked over her charts.

"Okay JD, how long do you think I have?" There it was, the dreaded question. The truth was, not long. But, I took a deep breath and sat down to face her a little better.

"Maybe 3-4 months at the very most with more Chemo. Without it, maybe 1." I gulped as I told her. Her expression fell a bit, but not by much. "Sorry kiddo."

"It's okay. I kind of expected it. I mean, what do you expect from cancer?" She shrugged."Gotta make the most of the time I have left, right?" I smiled a little and patted her hand.

"You're very optimistic, you know that?"

"People say that." She shrugged. I chuckled and we continued our conversation from where we left off."Okay, friends!" She sat up straighter, smiling. "What are yours like?" I smiled and sat up.

"Well, you've met most of them. Elliot was in here with , the red headed guy who was here yesterday."

"The one he called barbie?"

"That's the one."

"I like her, she's blunt, she doesn't sugar coat stuff."

"That's for sure. And you met Carla, she came in here this morning to change your IV bag."

"She's cool. I like her attitude. Plus she smack talks that Cox guy." She grinned. I held back a laugh.

"Yeah, he's not very friendly." She raised an eyebrow.

"I told him off for calling Elliot barbie and he called me baldy." She crossed her arms. I looked at her bald head and thought I saw a shine."Hey!" She snapped at me. I held my hands up in surrender.

"Okay, I'll talk to him about that." I promised her. She smiled.

"Thanks. So, you're other friends?"

"Just one more, his name's Turk, he works in the surgery department." I replied."Now, enough about me, you're the patient. What about your own friends huh? Have they visited yet?" I asked her, hoping the answer was yes. Her smile turned into a frown as she looked down at the sheets.

"I don't have anyone to visit me. I'm alone." I blinked.

"Come on Liz, surely your parents visited, right?" I asked, trying to make her feel better, instead she chuckled with no humor, closer to a scoff.

"Maybe when they drop dead." I frowned. This girl, barely a teenager, had nobody but herself. No wonder she was so sour. I rested my hand on her freezing one, because of the low oxygen levels.

"Well, we're sort of friends now, aren't we?" She thought about it for a second, smiled, and nodded.

"Yeah. Thanks JD." She yawned and looked out the window. The sun was setting already. I sighed.

"Well, I should go, but I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay, bye!" She waved before settling down.

* * *

The next day I walked by Liz's door and heard crying. I stopped for a moment and opened the door.

"Liz?" She bolted up and covered her face with the blanket. I sat down."What's going on, why are you crying?" In muffled sobs, Liz proceeded to tell me that Kelso had come into her room with a bunch of interns. He had asked someone how long they thought she had. They had guessed wrong and he revealed to them that in fact, unless she somehow had the tumor removed from her lung, which was virtually impossible, she would probably pass in 2 months. And when she had tried to ask him something about it, he had told her that she should shut up and pretend she was already dead. I paled as she kept going. I became angrier and angrier with every sentence she spoke. But I hid it for her sake. I went up to her."Do you want a hug right now?" I asked. I had learned over the years to never ever give a hug to someone who didn't want it.

"No, I just want to cry and break something. But I can only do half of that." I sighed and found some lined pieces of paper beneath my regular charts. I took them out and handed them to her.

"Will these work? I can have someone draw a picture of him for you and then you can do whatever you want with it." I offered, chuckling.

"Nah, I'll just pretend this is his ugly wrinkly homophobic face." She said as she ripped it into a billion pieces. I helped her shake out the blanket and put it back on her. "Thanks JD."

"Not a problem kiddo." I smiled and sat back down. We talked about all the rest of her medical stuff and soon there was a small silence."Want me to stay until you fall asleep?" I asked her. She seemed like she needed the company.

"Yes please." She said in a yawn. About twenty minutes later she fell asleep and I stormed out of the room. I marched right up to Kelso, who was at the nurses station. Carla was there too.

"Well what can I do for you Dorian?"

"Don't you what can I do for you me you jackass. How is it that some of you people at this hospital are so cold and insensitive?!" He blinked at my rage.

"Ummm, have I missed something?" I growled at him.

"You just think you're so important, and that people will just easily get over stuff you say." I took a few breaths to keep from bursting."You walked into a private room with 12 people and asked them how long they thought a 14 year old girl with cancer had to live, and when they get it wrong, not only do you indirectly tell her she has half the estimated time left, but when she tries to ask about it, you tell her to 'shut up and pretend she was already dead.' WHAT SORT OF MONSTER ARE YOU?!" By now I had attracted a crowd. Kelso looked speechless, many people were glaring at him, others looked shocked or surprised. Cox was standing by and looked proud. I ignored it and looked back at my boss. I knew I was probably going to be fired, but it was worth it. Instead, Kelso just walked away and slammed the door to his office. I sighed and looked at Carla.

"Oh my god, Bambi. come here." She held out her arms. I don't know why, but I took her hug gratefully. I sighed and backed away."I'll go check on her, okay?" She offered and I nodded. Turk came up to me with Cox.

"Well done newbie, well done."

"Dude, that was crazy." Cox walked away and Turk looked at me."Come on man, what is it about this kid? You don't get that worked up other other patients, not even Elaine." I shook my head in dissarray.

"I don't know Turk, I just don't know." Well, that was a lie. But I didn't want to think about it. I went through the rest of my work shift and went home at the end of the day.

* * *

~2 months later~

* * *

I sat with Liz and thought about the short time we had known each other. She had gotten considerably worse. Our chats had decreased more and more as she underwent more procedures, more treatments, was hooked up to more and more machines, all in an attempt to keep her going as long as possible. Kelso hadn't stopped by with any more interns, but still hadn't apologized either. And now, there she lay, tubes pouring out of everywhere. I frowned as I finished up her medical stuff. "And that's all of it." I grimaced. She sighed.

"JD, I know you now. So, I'm telling you to not freak out over this. I'm freakin scared. I don't know what death is like, and in the words of john green," I smiled as I remembered the day I had walked in on her reading the fault in our stars."I feel like I'm a grenade. And even though I'm a small one, with a single casualty, I wish it wasn't you." I stopped short in my thoughts of what she would say. Me, the only person close to her. She had become friends with my own friends over the months. But I had also learned how neglectful her parents had been, and how horrible people had been to her at school when she started to go bald. "You're the nicest, and most sensitive person I know, and I am gonna miss you. But you were a nice friend to have. Just, don't dwell on me, okay?" I frowned at her.

"I'm sorry Liz, you've been a really good and cool person to have around, you can't just expect me to not miss you." I told her." And besides, just because you'll leave doesn't mean you can't come back, hey, you could haunt Kelso as a ghost." I smiled."Come on, let's see that nice smile of yours." He lips quirked up and I kept poking her where there wasn't anything. Finally she grinned."There it is." I grinned."I'll see you in a bit, okay?"She nodded and closed her eyes.

"Night...dad." I stopped short, but she was already asleep by the time I looked back. I smiled to myself as she slept. I walked out.

* * *

Later, I was paged to Liz's room. I ran there as fast as I could. There was already a large amount of people in the room. Carla was trying to get her to breathe. Someone else was doing CPR. I stood there helplessly as they tried to keep her alive. I snapped out of it quickly and rushed to her side. I did as the others told me to do, when I wasn't doing anything, I was holding her ice cold hand. A few times she woke up and coughed. People tried to get her to stop, it was making her weaker, but she couldn't. Blood spilled up through her mouth and onto my scrubs. Then she fell back to sleep only to wake up again later. After an hour or so of this, the heart monitor stopped beating and let out an ear piercing whistle.

"She's gone."

Carla turned off the monitor. I frowned and let go of her limp hand. I walked to the door and kicked it on the way out.

* * *

That night I sat on our couch with Turk.

"Hey, come on bud, it's alright. There was nothing we could've done, you know how far along she was." He patted my back. I cried silently.

"She was just a kid. Nobody but me ever came to see her. What did she ever do that was so bad for her to have to go through so much pain? She was so fucking scared of death, and what did I say? You could haunt Kelso as a ghost. Sure, great thing to say."

"It was. She's a cancer kid she's heard everything pity and sugar coating. You were her friend. That's what she needed." He patted my shoulder and left. I looked down at my legs. I still had my cold scrubs on. Liz's blood still stained them. But still, I knew I had been more than a friend to her.

I had been her dad.

I just hope she thought I was a good one.


End file.
